I’ve been thinking a lot about my career path recently. Somehow, it ended up where I thought it would (full-time writer and artist) but it didn’t go the way I planned. I wanted to have my own theatre/film production company, but I couldn’t get it off the ground. Now, my entrepreneurial efforts revolve around my writing. The “career assessment tests” that I took in high school said I was going to be a scientist, which certainly motivated me to get my degree in anthropology. But I learned the hard way that academia is not for me.

It’s interesting to think about how our career paths intersect with personality type — or rather, they don’t, because those types are arbitrary and the tests are flawed.

I remember having someone I thought was a friend tell me that a certain pursuit was “not for me.” I was flabbergasted because who was she to tell me what I did and didn’t want to do? The part where you talk about “frentors” really resonated with me. I’m finally in a place where I’m finding those people, and I dumped the “friends” who wanted to squash my goals.

Really excellent piece — thanks for writing!